Things you may not have noticed, but your brain did. Beneath the surface are two distinct and powerful allegories one for the Bergens, one for the trolls. Trolls is a return to form for the studio, proving that they can play the musical game as well as Disney, without losing their signature style.īut there’s more to Trolls than the apparent sum of its parts. Over the years their efforts have become less subversive and more comfortable for family audiences. In the past few years it seemed as though Dreamworks had given up its game of playing the sarcastic older brother to Disney. The film has more than its fair share of innuendos and drug-references. The film’s tone is surprisingly dark, and nearly as much screen-time is dedicated to the terminally unpleasant Bergens as to the irrepressibly happy Trolls.
Dreamworks seems intent on letting us know they haven’t lost their edge, however. The script itself is fairly straight-forward and serious, with most of its humor stemming from the characters as opposed to random hi-jinks or pop culture references. The majority of the comedy comes in the form of visual gags, which hit more often than they miss. The humor is more sparse than the ads may have implied. On the surface, Trolls is a quirky little trip populated with colorful characters, a feel-good message about tolerance and musical numbers rivaling the best of Disney’s latest offerings (although Dreamworks cheated by using pre-existing songs, rather than wholly original compositions). That’s not entirely inaccurate, but I’m happy to say there’s much more to Trolls than I ever expected, given that it’s a film based on a toy-line from the 80’s. The marketing for this film has presented an easy-to-digest, broadly appealing, inoffensive family film with a few veiled shout-outs to the drug culture the film cribs its psychedelic aesthetic from.
Did you expect more from a piece of candy?”įrom the previews, Dreamwork’s Trolls appeared to be the latest in a long line of derivative children’s movies full of saturated colors and high-energy hi-jinks, but failing to convey even a hint of substance.
Lindsey Bahr of the associated press said of Dreamworks’ Trolls, “the get happy message, while trite when compared to something like Inside Out, is sufficiently sweet for its audience.